Tagging in Tiger

Okay, I’ve been using Tiger for almost six months now, and while it has performed well for me, the most popular of its feature, Spotlight, is the one I use the least. Not only is it not as fast it is touted to be ( I can’t stand watching the spinning beach ball), but neither does it always effectively retrieve what I’m looking for. Believe me, if I’m looking for something on my computer, it’s lost!

So either I don’t understand Spotlight’s real power and purpose or I’m just too organized in filing my stuff that I don’t really need it.

I’ve also made a few New Smart Folders using Spotlight (in Finder, not Mail), but I can’t say I’ve opened them up more than a few times. Shortcut keystrokes, menu bar access, and alias files on my desktop and in my dock deliver what I need faster..

I think what is missing most from Tiger and Spotlight is the ability to tag files and search for them. I’ve discovered the tagging concept through using sites like del.icio.us, Technorati, and Flickr. By associating documents and files with what are essentially keywords, your searches can be more fine tuned. It’s like using keywords in iPhoto or genre labels in iTunes. To be able to tag documents, files, or folders with words like “work,” “business,” “personal,” “Mymac,” “book review,” “daughter,” “photo assignment,” etc., I really won’t have to worry much about where I put a file or what name or description I used to label it in order to retrieve it.

And like most people, I think in associations. I may easily document files in respective folders, but I don’t want to build a traditional hierarchy that will become too complicated for me to maintain. For instance, if I’m searching for a certain category of book reviews I’ve written, my mind work this way: I do know it was a book review. I do know it was book about a piece of software. And I do know I only want reviews I’ve done about Peachpit press, which I gave five stars. And I also know I only want book reviews that were published on MyMac (I’m not published anywhere else right now, but work with me here.) These associations in my mind make up the tags I would use to identify these files. And if my computer is set up right, my frequently used tags would be made available to me for easy access.

That’s part of the beauty of iPhoto’s keyword system and the tagging feature on sites like Flickr. In iPhoto I can highlight my library of a couple of thousand photos, click on the keywords Kobe (my son) and holiday, and I will have those photos delivered to me. All I have to do is take a few minutes and tag them appropriately for what I might be looking for in the future. Flickr’s tagging works almost the same way. I can search for photos tagged with Canon Rebel Xt and nature, and get this collection.

With Tiger, I’ve key worded a handful of text documents using the information window for a file. (That takes way too long, mind you.) While Spotlight retrieves a few of those documents, it doesn’t doesn’t retrieve them all for some reason. Plus, it also gives me text documents I’m not looking for. If I want to find my book reviews, I don’t want text files that have the words book and review in their content, or files labeled “book review” written by someone else. I want the files that I tagged a certain way for a particular purpose.

If I’ve made you a little curious about tagging and its relationship to the cognitive process, check out this Google searched article.

Again, I’m not a programmer, and certainly Spotlight is not useless, but I just think Apple should give us users more voice in how we want its search light to find what what we’re looking for.